There’s a right way and a wrong way to announce layoffs. Sadly, too many tech companies take an insensitive and shortsighted approach that shows just how out of touch they are with the rest of the world.

David Marcus, PayPal’s new president, is stepping in where his customers service fails. He sent out a personal e-mail to Build Conference creator Andy McMillan after the distraught PayPal user nearly lost $62,000 when two of his accounts were locked down.

Carrier payments — the ability to make mobile purchases that get charged directly to your cellular bill — are convenient for consumers, but for many merchants they can be a raw deal thanks to the big revenue bite carriers often take from purchases.

Thousands of security professionals, hackers, federal agents and media descended on Las Vegas this week to attend the Black Hat and Defcon conferences. The two conferences exhibit the extremes of hacker and security culture, with federal agents and major corporations descending on Black Hat in large numbers and mohawk-styled hackers and Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers attending Defcon. It’s like the difference between law enforcement and pranksterism, where both have the object of protecting freedom.

Today we’re revealing the fifth set of speakers for our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference. Our slate of speakers will include Rich Wong, partner with venture capital firm Accel; Chris Bergstresser, executive vice president of online game portal Miniclip; and David Marcus, founder and CEO of mobile payment company Zong.